Rhenium fac tricarbonyl bisimine complexes: biologically useful fluorochromes for cell imaging applications.

A series of lipophilic and hydrophilic fac tricarbonyl rhenium bisimine complexes have been prepared, their membrane-permeabilities explored in liposomes and their potential for application in fluorescence microscopy cell imaging demonstrated in the first application of MLCT-fluorescent rhenium complexes in cell imaging.